In his final book, Olson also observed that no country in the post-war world that had satisfied two simple conditions had failed to prosper. The first was the existence of secure and well-defined individual rights. This is the rule of law, and equality of rights within it, made universal throughout a society. The second condition “is simply the absence of predation of any kind”. By predation he meant the arbitrary threats to persons and property that arise from war or authoritarian, confiscatory governments, but also the lobbying and subversion of legislation by interest groups of all kinds
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